In the autumn of 2008, when central banks first pushed benchmark rates toward the floor, the decision felt temporary — a crisis measure for extraordinary times. Seventeen years later, cheap money has become embedded in corporate strategy, sovereign debt, and household finance.
The long hangover
The numbers tell a stark story. Global corporate debt has swollen to nearly twice its pre-crisis figure, much of it premised on rates remaining low indefinitely. The latest policy cycle has exposed a decade of mispriced risk across every major asset class.
“We built a financial system on the assumption that money would always remain cheap. That assumption is now the dangerous variable.”